King City Rustler

A few more words on the General Plan propositions

King City Rustler
Posted on May 16, 2007

BY GEORGE WORTHY
Guest Commentary

A few weeks ago I wrote an article about the propositions on the next ballot and how we were under attack from the evil forces, that our farmers were
being told what they could do with their land by folks who had never worked on a farm. That brought a flurry of letters from those who either did not own land or had little at stake in the upcoming election. Well, OK, it was maybe more like two letters. It was intimated that I didn't know about what was going on and certainly was unaware of the consequences of the
infamous Proposition "A." 

I'm nothing if not a glutton for punishment, so I'm going to write about it again. But this time I'm going to be very honest. If you don't defeat this
proposition your children will be sold into slavery, the price of gas will go to ten dollars a gallon, and global warming will wipe out the sea otters. Hmmm,
maybe not all that, but it is close. This column will be about nothing but emotion. Let's face it. Less than .05 percent of the people voting on this proposition will ever read it and maybe half of them will understand what the true ramifications are going to be. I'm going to vote against this proposition because a lot of my friends are farmers and they don't like it. A lot of my friends are elected officials and they don't like it. None of my Mexican friends are going to vote for it, so I'm going to follow their lead.

Let's talk a little about this campaign and how it is being run. I read The Monterey Herald. I know there is a newspaper in Salinas, but to tell you the truth, our little periodical headquartered in King City really has more news on a weekly basis than that daily, well, whatever you want to call it. I notice all the gloom and doom folks writing for and against Proposition "A." Of all the letters that are published, a certain pattern has evolved. The people who say that this proposition is like buttered bread and the salvation of our way of life are all from over on the Peninsula. Which, by the way, get to vote on all that would happen in our little valley if this terrible proposition were to pass. However, we would not get to vote on their ideas of growth. Does this not seem a little out of balance? Did not our forefathers have a different idea of one person - one vote theory during our country's founding?

The war cry seems to attack our supervisors as taking huge sums of money from all sorts of nefarious characters in order to run for election or feed their
family. I mean, they haven't really come out and said that our supervisors are on the take, but if you read their accusations it sure seems that way. The
developers, the lawyers, the butcher, baker and the candlestick maker. Hey! I have news for them. The job of getting elected is taking more and more money. Folks from both sides of the aisle are lining up for any shekels that can be accepted legally. If you follow their thinking, you would believe that all the
folks that are for this proposition raise their own tomatoes, wear long hair, meditate daily and wear Birkenstocks. Come on! The money for almost anything is all mired in the underground of power brokers.  The "Peoples' Initiative," they call it. Who are these people? I never heard about the vetting process they went through to get this on the ballot. Did they
approach you for your opinion? When you question them do they sort of sit back and their eyes glaze over? I heard nothing of any public hearings on this little jewel they paid folks to gather signatures for, did you? Whereas the GPU4 plan is probably the most scrutinized document that has ever come before the
people. Have I read it? No. And be truthful, are you going to read it? I doubt it. Only the saviors of our nation, The League of Women's Voters, seemed to have read it in detail or maybe some obscure nurses association. I always thought the job of nurses was to administer to the ill. Must be a new job description that slipped past me as so many things do. (I'll bet I get more than one letter for that.)

The big reason many folks are not endorsing this ill-conceived notion is because few have even looked at all the ramifications. There is also the case of property rights. Do you want someone from over on the Peninsula, where they think lettuce grows on trees and broccoli on bushes, to vote on how you can use your land? There truly is a lettuce curtain between us and
the folks that use our neighbors, in this valley, to iron their newspapers. They have no idea where our lower-paid friends, we all have, are going to live.
Just as long as it isn't over where they might spoil the view of THEIR ocean. If you want to build a new development over on the Peninsula they don't want us
to vote on that, but let them into your backyard anytime there is a new subdivision.

As I said, this is an emotion column. I don't have to present all the facts. Just the ones that make sense to me and I don't like the inequity of this proposition. The election is coming up soon and we all need to make a real effort to get to the polls. The Peninsula has us beat in the population category. We use our land to grow food. Not cater to the tourist that fills their larders. Look at it this way. We elected our supervisors to represent us. I have always
said they are not necessarily leaders as much as they are our representatives. They voted 4 to 1 to approve GPU4. I think that represents my thought on the
general plan. By the way, guess where the one dissenter lives. I can promise you it is not Gonzales, or any of the other South County cities.  Get out and vote or send in your ballot. GPU4 is the only way we can keep control of our own destiny. Letters refuting my stance, not dealing with facts, are encouraged, but may not be read.

God Bless.